WASHINGTON, U.S. - The online retailer, Amazon has said that it is laying off hundreds of employees at its Seattle headquarters.

Commenting on the rare set of layoffs, an Amazon spokesman said in a statement to Fortune that “as part of our annual planning process, we are making headcount adjustments across the company—small reductions in a couple of places and aggressive hiring in many others.”

A report noted that the Amazon layoffs are the result of the quick growth of late that saw it end up with too much staff in some units.

Further, the report noted that Amazon managers are under pressure to squeeze out lower-calibre employees and show more spending discipline.

A source quoted in reports said, “Amazon has a problem right now with overpopulation.”

A report in the Times reported that the layoffs are mostly concentrated in Amazon’s consumer retail businesses.

In its annual report for 2017, Amazon said that it currently employs about 566,000 people worldwide.

Earlier this month, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and chief executive said in a statement, “Our 2017 projections for Alexa were very optimistic, and we far exceeded them. We don’t see positive surprises of this magnitude very often — expect us to double down.”